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Music geeks, start your squabbling: the 2013 Polaris Music Prize short list has arrived.

It’s a good one, too, one of the most musically diverse in the award’s eight-year history, taking in everything from the trim electro-pop of Metric and Tegan and Sara to the punishing punk assault of METZ and the doomy avant-rock of Godspeed You! Black Emperor to the experimental saxophone tones of Colin Stetson.

Toronto acts were reasonably well represented on the 10-album short list by METZ’s self-titled debut for Sub Pop Records; husband-and-wife duo Whitehorse’s The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss and Metric, which becomes the first act in Polaris history to be shortlisted three times with Synthetica.

Montreal, however, owns the list this year, probably because every band in Canada now wants to move there. American-born baritone saxophonist Stetson makes his second shortlist appearance with New History Warfare, Vol. 3: To See More Light; Edmonton-bred synth-pop duo Purity Ring turns up with Shrines and shape-shifting ex-Vancouverites Young Galaxy take a bow with Ultramarine. Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, meanwhile, holds it down in the name of native Montrealers.

Rounding out the Polaris contenders were Calgary-born twins (and two-time nominees) Tegan and Sara with the international hit Heartthrob; Cape Town-via-Nanaimo songstress Zaki Ibrahim with Every Opposite and Ottawa-based First Nations DJ crew A Tribe Called Red with Nation II Nation.

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The nomination was particularly sweet for Ibrahim, whose album is only available at the moment on Bandcamp (zakiibrahim.bandcamp.com) and still awaits a traditional release.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” she said after the short list was unveiled at the Drake Hotel on Tuesday morning. “I’m excited. It’s my very first record. I put everything into it and I really feel like something right is going on. I’m on a good path.

“I’m chuffed. I have a crush on myself at the moment.”

Young Galaxy frontwoman Catherine McCandless was in a similarly good mood.

“‘Moving’ is the word I keep using because I was surprised how emotional I felt about it,” she said. “We’ve been longlisted before and that hasn’t lost any of its gravity. It’s still an honour to get that far, but having the shortlist announcement come to us, that news, well, it’s being noticed. When you’re toiling away in obscurity, you don’t really know if anyone’s paying attention.”

Not everyone necessarily puts Polaris on a pedestal, mind you. METZ drummer Hayden Menzies confessed after the news conference that he was previously unaware that the $30,000 prize — which also pays out $2,000 apiece to the nonwinners — even existed.

“My first reaction was ‘What’s Polaris?’” he laughed.

“So Alex (Edkins) and I explained it to him and he was, like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s pretty cool,’” said bassist Chris Slorach. “I think we were all really, really surprised. It kind of caught us all off guard. It’s another pat on the back for this record. The record did way more than we ever expected it to do and we’ve been able to keep really busy because of it. We’ve spent a lot of time seeing a lot of the world and this is just another thing that’s, like, ‘Wow.’ It’s really cool.”

Singer/songwriter Kathleen Edwards and Vancouver rapper Shad were also revealed as hosts of this year’s Polaris gala, to be held in its new home, the Carlu, on Sept. 23.

The artist or artists chosen to succeed 2012 winner Feist (for Metals) will be decided by an 11-member jury sequestered away from the music and merriment on the night of the event. A limited number of seats will go on sale to the public for the first time on Monday, July 22, at $50 apiece through Ticketfly.com.

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